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106 smile breaking through her tears. "Don't you see," he continued, "that we've got to have this thing out?"

She continued to stare at him through a prism of tears. "I can't—while you stand up like that," she stammered, childishly.

She had cowered down again into a corner of the lounge; but Lansing did not seat himself at her side. He took a chair facing her, like a caller on the farther side of a stately tea-tray. "Will that do?" he asked with a stiff smile, as if to humour her.

"Nothing will do—as long as you're not you!"

"Not me?"

She shook her head wearily. "What's the use? You accept things theoretically—and then when they happen. "

"What things? What has happened!"

A sudden impatience mastered her. What did he suppose, after all—? "But you know all about Ellie. We used to talk about her often enough in old times," she said.

"Ellie and young Davenant?"

"Young Davenant; or the others. "

"Or the others. But what business was it of ours?"

"Ah, that's just what I think!" she cried, springing up with an explosion of relief. Lansing stood up also, but there was no answering light in his face.